


Braver Than He Realized

by MysteriousMidnight



Series: Dear Evan Hansen One Shots [2]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Evan has a panic attack, Jared Kleinman Is a Good Friend, Mentions of Anxiety, One Shot, Panic Attacks, dear evan hansen - Freeform, mentions of depression, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24342211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteriousMidnight/pseuds/MysteriousMidnight
Summary: Evan and Jared have been friends since they were eight-years-old. That's also when Evan had his first panic attack. That was four years ago. Evan has managed to hide his panic attacks from everyone - until now.OR: Evan is 12 and has a panic attack in front of Jared for the first time.Thank you to georgelovelylace for sending in this one shot request!
Series: Dear Evan Hansen One Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1757371
Comments: 11
Kudos: 59





	Braver Than He Realized

**Author's Note:**

  * For [georgelovelylace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgelovelylace/gifts).



“Evan, it’s _hot_. Can’t we go home and play video games instead?”

Evan frowned at Jared. “You always kick my butt when we play video games.”

“Ass,” Jared said firmly.

Evan’s eyes went wide. “W-what did I do? I’m sorry, I take it back! Please don’t be mad.”

“No,” Jared sighed, rolling his eyes. “Evan, you’re _twelve_. We’re starting _middle school_ in September. You can say the word ass.”

Evan blushed. “Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

Jared rolled his eyes again, following Evan as they started walking. Evan was so weird; he was always apologizing for dumb shit.

Evan stopped at the base of a giant tree. It was so tall, Jared couldn’t see the top.

“This one.”

“What about it?” Jared grumbled, using his hand to fan his face; he _really_ wanted to go home and swim or play video games in his air-conditioned basement.

“I’m going to climb it.”

“You- _what_?” Jared demanded, mouth dropping open.

“I’ve climbed tall trees before,” Evan reminded him.

“Yeah, in your backyard. And they were, like, half the size of this one.”

“I won’t climb _all_ the way up. Just, like, partially,” Evan shrugged.

Jared stared from Evan to the tree, then back. “This is _so_ not a good idea, Evan... What if you fall?”

Evan frowned at him. “You’re always telling me I’m too sheltered. Now you’re trying to talk me out of doing this?”

“Okay, I didn’t mean you had to climb a forty foot tall tree!” Jared insisted. “I meant.. I meant... you can _curse_. And we can raid my parents liquor cabinet once in awhile.“

“You know I like trees,” Evan replied, ignoring everything Jared had just said. “I’m good at climbing them. I’m not good at that many things, but I’m good at this.”

Jared scowled. “Fine, but if you fall and kill yourself, I’m not gonna cry over your dumb ass.”

“Gee, thanks,” Evan said flatly. He turned back to the tree, taking a deep breath. The truth was, he was actually terrified of trying to climb this tree. It didn’t have a lot of spots he could firmly grab, or a lot of places he could wedge his foot in. But Jared was always teasing him about being sheltered and a scaredy cat. He was tired of it, and he hoped this would prove he wasn’t.

So, he stepped forward and started to climb. It was slow going, at first. But the further up he went, the more confident he felt. Trees were easy; he understood trees, knew how to communicate with them, knew what they needed and wanted. People were harder. He didn’t know how to talk to people. Jared was the exception. They’d been thrown together when they were eight, and their moms had decided they should be friends. For some reason, that took some of the pressure off, and Evan had felt comfortable talking to Jared. He’d been able to open up to him in a way he hadn’t with other kids. And sure, Jared called him weird and made fun of him. But Evan just shrugged it off because that was how Jared was.

Evan, lost in his thoughts, didn’t realize how high he’d climbed until he heard Jared yell his name from down below. Hearing his name startled him, and he did the one thing you’re always told not to do - he looked down.

He was further up than he’d ever been before. By several feet. His eyes widened in shock. Pride flowed through him - he’d done it, he’d done something to prove to Jared he wasn’t a scaredy cat or a crybaby. He’d proven to _himself_ that he was braver than he realized.

And then it hit him just how far off the ground he was.

Not only that, he was between branches. He had nothing to grab to pull himself up, nothing to rest his weight on below him.

His chest suddenly felt tight, like a boa constrictor was curling itself around his body, squeezing him tighter and tighter. His breathing became shallow, too. Like someone had punched him, and he was gasping in air instead of breathing freely. It was making him dizzy - the kind of dizzy where everything was spinning around him, and he couldn’t anchor himself. His hand slipped, and he started to fall.

He heard Jared scream his name, but it sounded muffled, like Evan was under water.

He grabbed desperately for the tree as he fell, hard and fast, and managed to grab onto a branch, stopping his descent. He gripped it with one hand, flailing, trying to get his other hand around it, too, trying to pull himself up.

“Evan! Evan hold on!” Jared yelled. He was looking around frantically, but no one was close by. He didn’t want to leave Evan, though. “HELP! SOMEONE, PLEASE!” he screamed. He glanced back up at Evan. “Evan, hold on!”

But he couldn’t. Evan wasn’t strong enough to keep his entire body weight up with one hand. His grip slackened and he fell. He hit the ground with a sickening crash.

“Evan! SOMEONE, PLEASE!” Jared screamed, running to his friend’s side. “Evan? Evan, can you hear me?”

Evan was so still, Jared thought he was dead. But after a moment, he groaned and sat up. His palms were scraped and bleeding, his lip was split open, and he still couldn’t breath properly.

“Evan? Evan?” Jared was too afraid to touch him. What if he hurt his friend more? What if Evan had broken something? “Can you hear me?”

Evan curled into a ball, bringing his knees up to his chest. “Can’t... can’t breathe..” he cried, tears streaming down his face.

“Evan?” Jared asked, terrified. “Did a branch stab you? Did your lungs collapse? Did you break anything?”

Evan shook his head. No, no it was worse than that. Really, he hadn’t been high up enough for the fall to truly injure him, especially after the first fall; landing on that branch had put him closer to the ground, so the second fall had only busted his lip and his pride.

No, he was having trouble breathing because he was having a panic attack. Worse, he was having it in front of his best- his family friend.

Evan had had his first panic attack when he was eight-years-old - the same age he’d been when he’d met Jared. The year before, his father had left. After struggling financially for a year, Heidi had made the difficult decision to sell their house and move into a smaller, less expensive one. Jared’s mom had been the real estate agent.

The first few weeks in their new home had been incredibly disorienting. It didn’t smell right, it wasn’t laid out the same, and it looked scary in the dark. One night, he’d gotten up to pee and gotten “lost.” His sleepy brain had sent him on the same path to the bathroom as he’d taken in his old house, and he’d ended up in a coat closet instead of the bathroom. He’d gotten tangled in the coats and panicked. Heidi heard him scream, and found him, but not until after he’d had his first panic attack and peed himself.

He hadn’t understood, then, what the panic attack had been. That feeling like someone was crushing him, like he was drowning, like he suddenly couldn’t breath and would die of suffocation. He was eight, he’d never heard of panic attacks before. And he was ashamed. Who got lost in their own house? What self-respecting eight-year-old couldn’t control their bladder? Who got _that_ scared of a coat closet?

He couldn’t bring himself to admit to his mom what had happened. Instead, he’d lied and said he’d been looking for something in the closet, that he’d tripped on the shoes, and falling had startled him into peeing himself. He knew she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t call him on it. In those early days after his dad left, she’d tiptoed around him, not wanting to upset him.

Over the course of the next few years, the episodes (he didn’t know what else to call them) kept coming, but they didn’t occur that often. Evan was able to hide them from everyone.

And then he’d turned twelve in February.

Turning twelve had been both a blessing and a curse.

On the downside, he seemed to be having more episodes than ever before, which meant he was struggling more than ever to hide them from everyone; he never knew when one would hit, or what would trigger it.

On the upside, he’d finally worked up the nerve to use the library computer to try to figure out what was wrong with him. He hadn’t expected to find anything, but after several lunch periods spent searching, he found it - search results that talked about panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. He read everything and anything he could find about those topics.

And there it was. After four years, Evan finally had a name for the thing he experienced. But he still kept the truth to himself. Logically, he knew he probably wasn’t the only one who experienced these things - if he was, he wouldn’t have found so many search results on the topic. But his stupid brain told him otherwise, especially since none of his classmates ever seemed to talk about or experience those things, and none of the adults in his life had ever mentioned that those things were, you know, actual things that could happen. His brain convinced him he was a broken mess, and that his mom had enough on her plate without him adding to her burden.

So he’d kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t admitted it to anyone, not even Jared, who he saw as his best friend and confidant, even if Jared always shrugged him off and said they were family friends. Evan always hoped, deep down, that Jared cared more than he let on. He was Evan’s only friend.

Or, he _was_ Evan’s only friend. After this, who knew what would happen? Because he couldn’t stop the panic attack, couldn’t calm his breathing. And Jared was there. Jared was seeing what a mess he was. And Jared would never want to be his friend again after seeing how stupid and pathetic he was. Evan didn’t blame him; Evan wouldn’t want to be his own friend, either, after witnessing the sobbing, snotty mess he was.

“Evan,” Jared snapped, bringing Evan’s attention back to the present.

“I’m going to go find someone and I’m going to get you help, okay? Just stay here, okay?”

Evan shook his head frantically. “No.. no.. Jared, I’m fine, please..”

“You’re not _fine_ ,” Jared said frantically. “You can’t breathe! What if your lungs, like, collapsed or some shit? What if you broke something?”

“No.” Evan fought to control his breathing. He’d done this enough times, he could do it now. The panic attack was subsiding, finally. He took a deep breath in, held it for four seconds, then slowly let it out. He closed his eyes, trying to focus. “I’m fine.”

“That was _not_ fine, Evan. You fell from a _tree_! You couldn’t _breathe!"_

Evan opened his eyes, finally making eye contact with Jared. “I didn’t fall that far, okay? I’m.. I’ll be fine.” 

“What was that, then?” Jared demanded. 

Evan hung his head in shame. “I.. um, I just...” 

“Evan!” 

“I had a panic attack, okay?” He cried, fresh tears streaming down his face. Great. He’d had a panic attack in front of Jared, and now he was crying (for a second time) in front of him, too. Goodbye, family friend, it was nice knowing you. Maybe being friendless wouldn’t be so bad... 

“What?” Jared asked quietly, frowning at him. 

“I... I get, um.. I have panic attacks?” Evan picked at the scraped skin on his hands, pulling pieces of skin and dirt off. It was gross and it hurt but it gave him something to focus on, since he couldn’t look at Jared. 

“I’ve had them for awhile, but.. But please don’t tell anyone. I understand if you don’t want to be frien- I mean... I mean, we’re just family friends anyway, but just don’t tell anyone.” 

Jared couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know _what_ to say. The last ten minutes had been the most terrifying of his life. He’d thought his best friend (yeah, he wouldn’t admit it out loud, but Evan was his best friend) had _died_. And now this? 

“Why would I stop being your fr- family friend over this?” 

“Because I’m a freak,” Evan mumbled, wiping his nose with his arm. 

Jared frowned at Evan. He was terrible when it came to comforting people. He never knew what to say. So instead, he stood. 

“Wanna go back to my place and play video games?” 

Evan frowned, glancing up at Jared with confusion. 

“I’ll even let you win at least once,” he said with a grin. “Just don’t let it go to your head.” 

Evan stared at him, mouth open. Jared still wanted to hang out? With him? He stood slowly, wincing. He hadn’t been seriously injured, thankfully, but he was definitely hurting. 

“We’ll get your hands and lip cleaned up, too,” Jared offered with a shrug. “And then we can raid my parents liquor cabinet. If you can climb that tall of a tree, you’re brave enough to try alcohol.” 

Evan’s eyes widened. He offered Jared a tentative smile, nodding. “Yeah.. yeah okay. Let’s go. I want to kick your a-ass for once.” 

Jared snickered, which made Evan’s smile widen. Together, they started the walk back to Jared’s. 


End file.
